Prince of Persia Classic

Added June 20th, 2007 by James Bolan

Prince of Persia starts with your escape from the Palace dungeon. You have no idea what the Prince did, but somehow you know you are required to solve puzzles and battle guards to save a Princess from the evil Jaffar. That’s pretty much all there is to the story here with the exception of a few returning characters from the Sands of Time series. Puzzles, swordsmen, and traps lurk around every side-scrolling frame. Save the Princess and claim your rightful place as the Prince of Persia.

PoP Classic gameplay is much more frustrating than the Sands of Time series. You’ll often reach for that rewind feature and feel your blood pressure rise as you see the Game Over screen yet again. Potions and checkpoints are located in the game to aid your progress, but both are often placed in strange sections of a level. When in a difficult to navigate area, the Prince is aided by a magical butterfly. The butterfly will guide you in the direction you need to go, but it moves painfully slow. Locked gates must be opened by specially marked tiles which are usually guarded by swordsmen or various inanimate objects of doom. One of those objects is a set of steel spikes that automatically spring up from tiles when the Prince moves over them. These tiles will have holes in them and can be walked or jumped over. Combined with other traps and large leaps from tile to tile, it becomes obvious this game is all about timing. You wouldn’t expect to die so much from such a simple game, but you will. As soon as you get the basic movement timing down, you’ll be dodging traps and leaping over gaps like a pro.

The game’s combat reminds me of what we’ve seen from Assassin’s Creed. Nothing in the game is as flashy or impressive as Altair’s counter-attacks, but it’s very much based on strategic attack and defense. If you defend right before an enemy blade strikes you, time will slow down and you will parry the blade back and have a chance to counter-attack and land a blow of your own. Swing at the same time and a blade lock will occur that requires you to button mash to gain the advantage. The problem with this is the erratic AI system. While the AI is trying to regain his balance from my parry and I counter attack, somehow they are able to return their hand to block position and parry you in a millisecond. If you swing first, sometimes the AI will be able to swing immediately after you did and land a blow. I’ve tried returning this favor many times but have been unsuccessful. It’s nice to have a combat system where every encounter isn’t the same, but some of the AI attacks aren’t fair.

The controls are fairly simple. The left thumbstick controls the Prince’s movement. Pressing up on the left thumbstick will cause him to jump. X allows the Prince to pick up potions and to swing his sword in combat mode. The A button also performs a jump and is used as a dodge or parry in combat. The Y button will perform a show-off type move in sword combat while B sheaths your weapon. Some puzzles and obstacles will require you to roll which is performed by holding the B button while pressing a direction. The right trigger will allow you to grab on to a ledge while you’re falling.

Graphically the game is beautiful. The art style and character models are awesome. At times I felt like I was watching a cut-scene from the Sands of Time. The blood and spark effects could have used a little work, but you have to remember it’s an arcade game, not a multi-million dollar next gen title. For the size and scope of the game, it looks great.

The game’s audio gets the job done in terms of basic environment sounds and player movement. Music in the game goes for a classic middle-eastern Arabian night’s style but comes off as Havah Nagilah every time I hear it. The sound of steel spikes grinding as they rise to greet you always makes me wince a little. The death groans are pretty laughable, but again, we can’t expect top-notch acting from an arcade game.

Summary:

You’ll undoubtedly appreciate Sands of Time more after completing Classic. Overall, the gameplay is simplistic, but still a fun experience. As a puzzle game you’d expect more variation in traps as you near the end, but that doesn’t happen. With a relatively short campaign, Time Trial, and Survival mode as your only replay options, there’s not much here. Hardcore fans of the Prince of Persia series might want to pick this one up if you’re curious as to how the series began, but don’t expect a stellar experience like Sands of Time.